Endoscopic surgical techniques and procedures have become widely accepted both among the medical surgical community and the patient population. There are numerous benefits associated with the use of endoscopic surgical techniques rather than conventional open surgical techniques. These benefits include reduced avenues for infection, shortened post-operative recuperation period, decreased hospital stay and decreased scarring. It is not unusual for the post operative period to be shortened from weeks with conventional open surgery to several days with endoscopic surgical procedures, and outpatient endoscopic surgery is becoming more and more typical. The term endoscopic as used herein is defined to include endoscopic, laparoscopic, arthroscopic, and thorascopic.
In a typical endoscopic surgical procedure, the abdominal cavity of a mammal is typically insufflated with a sterile gas, such as carbon dioxide, in order to provide increased maneuvering room within the body cavity for endoscopic instruments. This procedure is typically referred to as inducement of pneumoperitoneum. Then, conventional trocars are inserted into the patients body cavity through the surrounding skin, tissue and musculature of the body cavity wall. A conventional trocar typically consists of a trocar cannula which houses an elongated trocar obturator. Trocar obturators typically have a piercing point, although other types of obturators are also available having blunt tips. Once the trocar has been positioned within the body cavity, proximal to the target surgical site, the trocar obturator is typically removed leaving the trocar cannula in place as a pathway to and from the target surgical site. The surgeon will place various types of endoscopic surgical instruments thorough the trocar cannulas in order to access the target surgical site where the surgical procedure will be performed. Examples of endoscopic instruments which have been developed for use with endoscopic surgical techniques include ligating clip appliers, electrosurgical instruments, endoscopes, tissue graspers, needle graspers, cannulas, tissue manipulators, endosurgical scissors, and the like.
Although endosurgical procedures and techniques offer many advantages, there are some deficiencies associated with these procedures and techniques. In particular, when the surgeon is operating using endoscopic surgical procedures, he is typically using an endoscope which is positioned within the body cavity through a trocar. The endoscope is typically connected to a video camera and the output from the video camera is displayed on a video monitor. The surgeon typically views the display on the video monitor as he manipulates instruments within the body cavity to access the target surgical site and perform the actual surgical procedures. The video display provides the surgeon with only two- dimensional input and there is a consequent loss of depth perception. This lack of depth perception may result in the surgeon over-shooting or under-shooting the target surgical site as he attempts to position various endoscopic instruments within the body cavity.
As can be appreciated, the internal organs of a mammal are very tightly packed within the body cavities. Therefore, the surgeon must exercise extreme care when maneuvering instruments through a body cavity to a target surgical site. This can be particularly difficult since, as was mentioned previously, the surgeon is working in a three dimensional space while viewing a two dimensional output. The degree of care which must be exercised by the surgeon is increased further when the surgeon is attempting to maneuver cutting instruments to the target surgical site. The cutting instruments which have been developed for use in endosurgical procedures consist of conventional endosurgical scissors and the like. The surgeon must be careful when maneuvering endoscopic cutting instruments , for example, endosurgical scissors, through a body cavity so that no internal organs or blood vessels are accidentally nicked or cut. In addition, it has been observed that endoscopic surgical scissors do not cut with the same efficiency as a conventional scalpel.
What is needed in this art is an endoscopic surgical cutting apparatus which will not accidentally nick or cut internal organs or blood vessels but which has improved cutting properties.